The Great American Desert is a term that was used in the 19th century to describe the High Plains east of the Rocky Mountains. This article is about a geographic region in the United States Mountain peaks of the Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a Mountain range in western North America.
Description
In colonial times, the term "desert" was often used to describe treeless or uninhabited lands whether they were arid or not. By the 19th century, the term had begun to take on its modern meaning. It was long thought that treeless lands were not good for agriculture; thus the term "desert" also had the connotations of "unfit for farming". Agriculture refers to the production of goods through the growing of plants and fungi and the raising of domesticated Animals The study of agriculture While the High Plains are not a desert in the modern sense, in this older sense of the word they were. The region is mostly semi-arid grassland and steppe. Grasslands (also called greenswards) are areas where the Vegetation is dominated by Grasses ( Poaceae) and other Herbaceous (non-woody In physical Geography, a steppe ( German, from степь - "a flat and arid land" степ - /stɛp/ тал - tal дала - /dɑlɑ/ pronounced Today much of the region supports agriculture through the use of aquifer water irrigation. An aquifer is an underground layer of Water -bearing Permeable rock or unconsolidated materials ( Gravel, Sand, Silt, or Clay Irrigation is an artificial application of water to the soil usually for assisting in growing crops But in the 19th century, the area's relative lack of water and wood made it seem unfit for farming and uninhabitable by an agriculturally-based people.
When the region was purchased by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Jefferson wrote of the "immense and trackless deserts" of the region. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the For the film see Louisiana Purchase (film. The Louisiana Purchase (French Vente de la Louisiane "Louisiana Sale" 1803 ( MDCCCIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Thomas Jefferson (April 13 1743 – July 4 1826 was the third President of the United States (1801–1809 the principal author of the Declaration of Independence Zebulon Pike wrote "these vast plains of the western hemisphere, may become in time equally celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa". Zebulon Montgomery Pike Jr ( January 5, 1779 – April 27, 1813) was an American soldier and explorer for whom Pikes Peak His map included a comment in the region, "not a stick of timber"[1]. In 1823, Stephen Long, a government surveyor and leader of the next official exploration expedition, produced a map labeling the area the Great American Desert. Year 1823 ( MDCCCXXIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Stephen Harriman Long (December 30 1784 &ndash September 4 1864 was a U In the report that accompanied the map, the party's geographer, Edwin James, wrote of the region, "I do not hesitate in giving the opinion, that it is almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course, uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence. Although tracts of fertile land considerably extensive are occasionally to be met with, yet the scarcity of wood and water, almost uniformly prevalent, will prove an insuperable obstacle in the way of settling the country"[2].
While many other travelers reported similar conditions and conclusions, there were problems in the interpretation and the use of the word "desert". By the 19th century, the word had begun to assume its modern sense, evoking images of sandy wastelands. Yet descriptions of the American High Plains almost always included comments about "Innumerable Herds of Buffaloes" (which was written on Pike's map just above "not a stick of timber"). The giant herds and teeming wildlife of the Great Plains were famous by the time the term Great American Desert came into common use, undermining the idea of a sandy wasteland. The important idea contained in the reports of the region was not whether it was sandy or not, but whether it could be farmed. Reports were generally in agreement on concluding that it could not be farmed. By the middle of the 19th century, as settlers migrated across the plains to Oregon and California, the "sandy waste" connotation of "desert" was seen to be false, but the sense of the region as uninhabitable remained until irrigation, railroad transportation, and barbed wire made up for the lack of surface water and wood. Oregon ( is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean.
The region's relative lack of water and wood affected the development of the United States. Settlers heading westward often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible en route to better land farther west. These early settlers gave telling names to the various streams of the region, such as "Sweetwater Creek" or "Poison Creek".
The area became one of the last strongholds of independent American Indians. Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States Railroad interests seeking right of ways through the region also benefited from the belief that the land was commercially valueless.
By the mid-19th century, people had begun settling in the region despite its poor reputation. The local inhabitants came to realize the area was at the time well suited for farming, due in part to the fact that large portions of the region sit atop one of the world's largest underground reservoirs, the Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer, is a vast yet shallow underground Water table Aquifer located beneath the Great Plains Experts of the era proposed theories that maintained the earlier reports had been accurate and the climate had changed. Some even credited the settlers themselves as having caused the change by planting crops and trees. The slogan "rain follows the plow" was created to describe this belief. Rain follows the plow is the conventional name for a now-discredited Theory of Climatology that was popular throughout the American West Today these theories are discredited.
Additionally, it has been demonstrated that while there is an abundant amount of water in the Ogallala Aquifer, this aquifer is in fact slow to replenish itself, with most of the water in the Aquifer having been there since the last Ice Age. The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer, is a vast yet shallow underground Water table Aquifer located beneath the Great Plains An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the Temperature of the Earth 's surface and atmosphere resulting in an expansion of continental Ice sheets Some current estimates predict the usefulness of the Aquifer for agriculture to subside and be useless in as early as 25 years, leading current farmers to turn away from irrigated agriculture using the aquifer[3], giving credence to the initial accounts by early settlers of the area as unsuitable for farming (at least in the mid- to long term).
The area once called the Great American Desert is now usually called the Great Plains or the High Plains. The Great Plains are the broad expanse of Prairie and Steppe which lie east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada The original term is now sometimes used to describe the arid region of the Southwest, which includes parts of northern Mexico and the four deserts of North America. The Southwestern area of the United States could be defined as the states west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37 The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. This is a list of North American deserts. There are four major Deserts, in North America, all located in the Western United States and northern
References
- ^ Meinig, D.W. (1993). DW Meinig (Donald William Meinig born 1924 is an American geographer focusing on Historical geography, Regional geography, Cultural geography The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2: Continental America, 1800-1867. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-05658-3; pg. 76
- ^ Meining (1993:76)
- ^ "Ogallala aquifer - Water hot spots", BBC News, ?.
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic